The mission of the Clean and Secure Energy from Domestic Oil Shale and Oil Sands Resources
Program at the University of Utah is to pursue research that improves industry's ability to
utilize the vast energy stored in domestic oil shale and oil sands resources in a manner that
minimizes environmental impact from production. This research includes technical challenges
such as energy efficient processing, proper characterization of the source material, and
predictive geologic models as well as societal issues such as environmental impacts, water
consumption, land use, and economics. The Program's research is interdisciplinary in nature
and involve researchers from multiple departments and colleges at the University of Utah.

The project has overarching objectives as outlined in the three research areas below:

The objective of this research area is to produce the research and simulation tools needed
to assess liquid fuel production, upgrading, and refining from oil shale and oil sands, and
specifically to produce basin/regional scale simulation tools with predictive capability for
evaluating the potential for unconventional resource development given a range of
environmental and economic constraints.

This research area applies science, engineering, and technology research tools developed
within the Institute for Clean and Secure Energy to a wide variety of in-situ processes for
recovering liquid fuel from oil shale and oil sands resources.

There are two main objectives in this research. The first objective is to explore and
identify gaps in the environmental, legal and policy framework for implementation of
in-situ thermal processing technologies for oil shale and oil sands on public and private
lands. The second objective is to perform an economic and policy evaluation of domestic
oil shale and oil sands development. This objective includes the publication of a report
entitled "A Market Assessment of Oil Sands and Oil Shale Resources in Utah."